The Can't Cook Book: Recipes for the Absolutely Terrified! (2 page)

Even though I’ve cooked my whole life, and it’s always come quite easily to me, I’ve had long and intimate relationships with many Can’t Cooks.

I live with a Can’t Cook, I have family members who are Can’t Cooks, and many of my best friends are Can’t Cooks. I know who you are, I know what you think, and I know how you feel. I know all the different types of Can’t Cooks—The Won’t Cooks, The Tried to Cooks, The Hate to Cooks, The Too Busy to Cooks, The Used to Cooks, The Publicly Humiliated Last Time I Cooked Cooks, and “That’s the Last Time I Ever Cook for You Ingrates” Cooks.

The thing I’ve found with Can’t Cooks is they almost always grew up in a kitchen where there was a lot of stress around cooking and food. If you never had a person around you in the kitchen who was encouraging, helpful, and clear—I want to be that person for you. You can start fresh here. No judging, no embarrassment, in fact, I’m going to personally guarantee you some fun while you’re learning this new skill.

I think one of the biggest reasons people never face cooking is that mistakes along the way are particularly exposed. When you burn something horribly, it’s there on the plate for everybody to laugh at. When you fall learning to ice-skate, you can quickly get back up and hopefully nobody even knows it happened.

Remember when you were little, that look on your mother’s face when you gave her that mud pie you made? She loved it just because you made it for her. With this book, I guarantee you are going to make things that will taste better than that, but the feeling’s going to be the same. You know that feeling when you hit the bull’s-eye with that perfect birthday gift for someone you love? Cooking can feel like that.

Most beginner cookbooks do not address the number one problem of the Can’t Cook—fear. The idea that a person with no cooking experience can pick up a cookbook and just follow the instructions successfully is a crock. I’ve heard from so many Can’t Cooks who have tried a recipe only to find halfway through there’s a tricky technique, some weird foreign words, and some pre-preparation that nobody mentioned. And that’s when the panic hits. To avoid all of this, every recipe we’re going to do together has clearly defined “Don’t Panic” instructions.

This book has more than one hundred photographed recipes, written specifically for people with less than zero experience in a kitchen. If the only cooking you’ve done is stirring a spoon in a cup of coffee, you will be able to do these. But if you are still feeling worried, the How-to section will show you basic techniques such as chopping garlic and slicing an onion.

To take you a step or two further, there are links to videos of me showing you exactly How-to. You can watch them by logging on to
www.tccb.co
or by scanning the watermarked photos with a free app that you can get at
scannow.mobi/tccb
.
And if that isn’t enough, I even have some recipes that require little or no cooking at all—called Quickies. Because sometimes even Can Cooks don’t want to cook. (See
Tomato & Ricotta on Toast
.)

Even though I believe cooking can be a simple skill, it gives you back so much more. When someone looks up at you after a bite of something you’ve made and says, “Hey! This is really good!” you’ll have a certain kind of inside smile that’s like nothing else.

Being an adult beginner at anything is unnerving. No one likes to leave his comfort zone. Cooking as a beginner can make you feel very inept, uncomfortable, and even scared. But not for long, my friend. You’re already showing some potential. Of course, in any new learning experience, there are setbacks. The fun thing about cooking is that sometimes those setbacks can lead to unintended but surprisingly good results. Believe it or not, cooking can even feel relaxing and spontaneous—but that comes in time, once you are comfortable. Leading up to that point means messing up once in a while. So don’t let inevitable mistakes scare you. If you have a dog, he may end up loving this new hobby of yours.
So let’s get you up and running.

One of the first things we’re going to undertake is turning your kitchen into a place where you enjoy working. You will learn what everything looks like and what it does. Your kitchen will be stocked with a few simple items and ingredients you will love using. I will set you up with a starting routine that is exactly the same every time, no matter what you are cooking. You’ll feel organized, calm, and ready for anything. This is the essence of being a Can Cook.

In the next few pages, there are lots of photos, along with simple lists of the equipment and ingredients you’ll need. This detailed guide will organize you, educate you, and keep your fear at bay. I will help you establish a routine before you even start getting into the recipes. Utilizing certain pots and pans, easily found ingredients, and a consistent setup will make things predictable. Every time you think about cooking something, you will actually know where to begin. The How-to section will break it way down for you with step-by-step photos that will help give you the skills and confidence to jump-start your cooking life. The How-to videos make things crystal clear.

If you are still wondering if you can do this, let me tell you, the recipes that follow have been vetted, debugged, and lab-tested by some of the clumsiest, most useless individuals I’ve ever met (yes, Jerry, I’m talking about you) and they still worked.

So let’s get going. Get the old newspapers and magazines out of the oven, drag that wedding gift pot set out of the basement, clear out that drawer full of takeout menus from the ’80s. And fire up the pilot light—we’re going in.